Although Jackson wasn't thinking about the weather when he walked into his work compound, it entered his mind within moments of his first sip of "coffee", the chattering of his coworkers hurrying through the halls inevitably reaching his unwilling ears. On a usual morning Jackson might have been one of them, but Nguyen was on vacation, shuttled off into "town", and she had always been the more social of their duo.
Every snippet of conversation he had overheard that morning was in some way related to the storm. The speeds of the wind and the direction it was heading and how much debris it had picked up along the way and blah blah blah. Jackson couldn't care less about some duststorm out on Tempe Terra. However close it got, he had seen the capabilities of the dome himself, and had no doubt in his mind that it could hold against this year's assault from their loving planet with energy to spare.
It annoyed him to no end that people were already talking about running off to "town" to hide out in the lava tubes of Arsia Mons when the storm might not even hit them.
"Oh, Jackson!" Vigil caught him by the arm as were they passing. "So, I know I said I'd fix the intercom in your guys' room by yesterday, but it turns out that command's delaying the shipment on purpose, because of the storm and all, so it'll actually probably be a while. Sorry." They pushed their glasses up their nose sheepishly.
"It's fine," Jackson grunted. He had always hated the intercom system, especially since in recent weeks they had had practically nothing to offer except birthday announcements and weather reports, and, with Nguyen gone, had taken it upon himself to shut it up.
Vigil only looked more pathetically nervous, however, and continued, "I can, um, maybe get someone to, uh-"
"It's fine," Jackson cut them off with more force in his voice than was strictly necessary. "I seriously don't give a damn."
Not wanting to give Vigil an opportunity to stutter another word, Jackson turned and walked briskly the way he had been going, towards the room frequented only by Nguyen and himself. He took an angry swallow of his "coffee" as he thought of the fact that shipments were being delayed over a little bit of wind and gave the intercom an extra kick as he entered the laboratory.
The lab was a long, low room filled with rows of planters, in each of which was a variety of edible and otherwise useful flora. Each planter had very slightly different base conditions, which were noted and updated daily in a very strictly organized fashion. That was Jackson's job: to care for the plants and to record the status of each and every one on the daily, which was very important, as well as very boring. Nguyen, however, was the one who really had to pay attention to the data, because her job was to figure out exactly what it all meant.
Growing plants on Mars was hard, but they were doing their part in making it easier.
...
It was only when he stopped from his work to sip his "coffee" that he realized it had been hours. No longer hot, all illusions that the drink might be anything other than a caffeine pill dissolved in water were dropped, and he grimaced at the taste.
Jackson rose and straightened, spine cracking all the way up into his shoulders. After he shook out his legs, he checked his progress and wagered that he had done more than enough to justify taking a break to get a fresh cup of "coffee".
As he stepped into the hall, however, Jackson felt a horrible shiver of fear, an overpowering feeling that something was terribly wrong. He shook his head. What evidence was there to support that? There were no screams, no blood on the walls.
No screams?
Jackson's blood went cold as the silence hit him, deafening in its absolute emptiness. The lab was quiet, yes, but it's low ceiling caught the sounds of his breath and movement and filled the space with them, making it seem like the silence of a cat, or of noise-cancelling headphones. The hallways gave no such comfort, but unlike the lab they were always full of activity, of people who walked and ran and talked and laughed, and so it had a similar effect in seeming less quiet than it was.
It was quiet now, though. Deadly so.
Jackson walked towards the break room, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his throat. There had be some reason for this, he thought. He couldn't get scared before he had anything to be scared about.
Above the door of the break room, a little red light blinked dully, and Jackson lost all composure in that one moment of realization that something was wrong, and that he had no idea where anyone had gone or why, and, most of all, that no one had thought to tell him.
A whimper rose up from somewhere deep inside him as panicked tears began to sting at his eyes, and he had to physically stop and put down his cup of lukewarm caffeine water before it slipped out of his sweating, shaking palms. He breathed, four beats in and four beats out, for a solid minute and a half before he could bring himself to make a move to leave the compound.
Stepping out into the plaza made no change to the fear that was swiftly evolving into pure terror.
The stillness was worse outside. So oppressively complete was it that it felt like a physical weight; pinning him, crushing him, stealing the breath from his lungs and choking him, an invisible and inescapable villain of the worst kind.
After a minute, though, he realized that it wasn't silent. There was a distant sound, like a rumble or a dull roar, that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and it was only comforting for a moment before his anxious mind came to wonder what exactly was making that sound. He looked around him, and, seeing nothing looked up.
The sky simulated by the dome was blue, like that of Terra, and usually homogeneous in color besides a few lighter patches that could be imagined clouds by the willing. Now, however, it was marbled and sparking, which Jackson knew all too well to be symptoms of extreme external stress.
Evidently, the storm had hit.
He looked to the docks, and saw what he knew he would: every shuttle and buggy long gone, along with the whole of the colony.
Minus one.
Jackson looked back to the dying shield, all fear draining from him in the face of the inevitable, and watched. He watched the dust burst inwards with explosive force, a great red cloud unfurling over the compound. He watched the atmosphere, with such a high pressure in contrast to the natural state of the planet, rush out in a mad escape through the great holes torn by the storm.
He looked up at the butterscotch sky and watched no more.
A/N - betcha can't guess the last scifi i read lol (((psst it was the martian))) anywayssssss this is for Golden_Mermaid13's originality awards and is based off an image that im having trouble gettin over here so :// but like its not crucial to readin so eh (im saying the image is of the dust coming over the compound btw)
